Modern-day miracles happen

It was an ordinary Saturday in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman’s newsroom Nov. 13, 2010. At about 2:30 p.m., we heard a call on the emergency band radio scanner. It sounded bad.

A boy riding a snowmachine collided with a truck and the child was pinned beneath the vehicle.

We had a reporter and photographer in Palmer already covering another event that day, so the editor called and redirected them to the accident scene.

A few minutes later, news staff posted this update to the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman’s Facebook page: “Snowmachine vs. vehicle accident off Soapstone involving an 8-year-old child. They are 20 minutes into performing CPR. Requesting prayers and happy thoughts for the child, family and responders working to save the child’s life.”

It was the top story in that Sunday’s paper. The headline read, “God was smiling on that boy.” It was a quote from one of the emergency responders at the scene.

A family member living out of state shared updates from the family. She also shared the news when Christian Aldrich opened his eyes and began telling his family what he’d seen while he was in heaven.

We knew then this was a story we had to share with readers. But since Christian was hospitalized and fighting for his life, we waited patiently until the family was ready to tell the story.

We think you’ll agree it was worth the five-month wait. We’d hoped to share Christian’s story in our Christmas edition, but his miraculous life-after-death story seems even more apropos for Easter, a season that celebrates Jesus’ resurrection after three days in a tomb.

The boy’s modern-day death and resurrection offer parallels to the familiar Easter story: only a powerful God could have made Christian’s damaged body whole.

The truck came to rest that day with its left rear wheel on the 8-year-old’s chest. It stopped his heart and collapsed his lungs. He was clinically dead for 40 minutes before paramedics got his heart beating again.

At the hospital, doctors told his parents, Jim and Amber Aldrich, that their son had two broken ribs, a bruised heart, crushed lungs, his liver and bowels were swollen and bruised and he had a severe compound fracture to his right leg.

The neurologist said brain damage was likely. And the pediatrician was the least optimistic of all. She told them there was so much damage to Christian’s body that he wasn’t expected to live through the night.

“We were encouraged to stay with him and just love him,” Amber said.

Christian did live through the night and spent the next four days in a coma. Three weeks later, he was released from the hospital on Dec. 2, 2010.

In the months since the accident, Christian has made an almost complete recovery. The only reminder now is his right leg that is still in a cast to the knee while a missing 2-inch section of his tibia fills in.

The cast and the walker Christian uses to get around slow him down some. Already the 8-year-old says he’s itching to return to his favorite pastimes, such as tae kwon do classes, horseback riding, fishing, riding bikes and shooting his bow.

For believers such as Jim, Amber and Christian Aldrich there is only one explanation.

“I know in my heart that it is a miracle,” Amber said. “Jesus is alive and well and he’s still in the miracle business.”